"The Problem Is Choice."
Authority is Limited by Autonomy Just as much as authority, control, and planning infringe upon autonomy, free will, and yes, choice, the latter, in their turn, hamper the efforts and designs of the former. No fixed and limited logic, authority, or plan can contend with the human capacity to generate options that had not existed prior to the encapsulation of a single logic within a larger body of multiple logics. There is always an option imaginable and available which defeats any limited strategy with limited resources at its disposal. Resourcefulness is potentially infinite, while resources are always finite at any given moment. Thus a finite rationality always requires a greater and greater portion of resources in order to remain effective. Control is a Tactic, not a Strategy Control is specific to a context of planning which is known well, and known well in advance. A complete catalog of all the data pertinent to the effort at hand is assembled, the planners knowing full well that not one element will change until they make such a change, when they have prepared everything in a precise manner and in the necessary way. Control is a domain, a particular process engaged upon for a limited time until a specific result is obtained. Control is a Tactic, rather than a Strategy. Control is limited to a specific formal logic out of the totality of a Universe of formal logics, a logical space. Control cannot hold its own in this larger space. ---- Only Free Will can. ---- Control is Powerless against the Unknown But control simply cannot be as effective, ever. We attempt to hold back the darkness of the unknown, the unknowable, the Ding an Sich, with control, and control is powerless against the unknown. So we angrily insist upon more and more control, tackling one tiny bit of our fears at a time, always fighting a losing battle. As Santayana's fanatics, we redouble our efforts, even as we lose sight of our goals. So we begin to become the very darkness we fear. We are filled with purpose, and emptied of Humanity. We become unable to imagine a different existence, a different process. We become powerless to use our Free Will, to see beyond mere options, to make real choices. ---- We become slaves to our methods and tools. ---- Irreversible Choice is Doom There are at least two problems of irreversible choice. The first, and most easily resolved, is where we continuously exert a great effort toward preventing others from exercising autonomy, and choosing some other, more socially approved, course of action: this only requires a change in policy to resolve. The second is far more problematic, however, in that the consequences of a choice can accumulate exponentially, such that a change in policy becomes increasingly difficult and costly to make. ---- We may fear that the solution is as bad, or worse than, the problem. ---- Of course, the first case can quickly become the second, and a huge investment of effort incurs a further penalty, in that it blinds us to the innate momentum that is accruing. These problems of policy are further exacerbated by questions of competence and blame. Have poor decisions been made out of unexceptional human fallibility, or out of arrogance, partiality, selfishness, or sheer greed or incompetence? The Value of the Universal Adaptive Logic We value the logical processes by which we form such policies, because it provides us the means by which we can begin with "self-evident" and "unalienable" values, and produce the necessary attitudes, courses of action, plans and policies by which these values can be fulfilled -- and in concert! Beliefs, which we haven't the means at our disposal to prove, and values, from which no argument can dissuade us, form the core of a Metaphysics, which exists prior to and outside of Logic. The value we place on a singular formal logic is not a primary value; it is an acquired value, based on the utility of Logic as a means to the fulfillment of primary values. ---- The value of Logic is inestimable, but the value of a single logic lies only in the results it obtains. ---- Category:Social Philosophy